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Sunday, October 20, 2013

Major General William T. Sherman to Ellen Ewing Sherman, April 17, 1863

CAMP OPPOSITE VICKSBURG,
April 17, 1863.

. . . I have never been considered the advocate of McClellan
or anybody. I have often said that McClellan’s reputation as a scholar and
soldier was second to none after Mexico. I heard Gen. Persifor F. Smith in 1849
pronounce him better qualified to command than any of our then generals. I remember once when we were riding along and
talking of certain events in Mexico he named some half dozen young officers who
he thought should at once be pushed forward, and McClellan was the first in
order after Lee. I admit the right and duty of Mr. Lincoln to select his own
agents and when one displeases him there can be no accord, and he should set
him aside. He is ex necessitate to that extent king and can do no wrong.
At all events everybody must and should submit with good grace. But knowing the
very common clay out of which many of our new generals are made I have trembled
at any shifting of commanders until the army feel assured that a change is
necessary. I know Hooker well and tremble to think of his handling 100,000 men
in the presence of Lee. I don't think Lee will attack Hooker in position
because he will doubt if it will pay, but let Hooker once advance or move
laterally and I fear for the result. . . .

Here we have begun a move that is one of the most dangerous
in war. Last night our gun-boats, seven of the largest, ran the blockade and
are below Vicksburg. They suffered comparatively little. Three transports
followed, one of which was fired and burned to the water's edge. The Silver
Wave passed unhurt and my old boat the Forest Queen had one shot in
her hull and one through a steam pipe, which disabled her. She is below
Vicksburg and above Warrenton and is being repaired.

McClernand's Corps has marched along the margin of an
intricate bayou forty-seven miles to New Carthage, and the plan is to take and
hold Grand Gulf, and make it the base of a movement in rear of Vicksburg. I
don't like the project for several reasons. The channel by which provisions,
stores, ammunition, etc., are to be conveyed to Carthage is a narrow crooked
bayou with plenty of water now, but in two months will dry up. No boat has yet
entered it, and though four steam dredges are employed in cutting a canal into
it I doubt if it can be available in ten days. The road used is pure alluvium
and three hours' rain will make it a quagmire over which a wagon could no more
pass than in the channel of the Mississippi.

Now the amount of provisions, forage and more especially
coal used by an army and fleet such as we will have, will overtax the capacity
of the canal.

Again we know the enemy has up the Yazoo some of the finest boats
that ever navigated the Mississippi, with plenty of cotton to barricade them
and convert them into formidable rams. Knowing now as they well do that our
best ironclads are below Vicksburg, and that it is one thing to run down stream
and very different up, they can simply swop. They can let us have the reach
below Vicksburg and they take the one above, and in the exchange they get
decidedly the best of the bargain. To accomplish such a move successfully we
should have at least double their force, whereas we know that our effective
force is but little if any superior to theirs. They can now use all the
scattered bands in Louisiana to threaten this narrow long canal and force us to
guard it, so that the main army beyond will be unequal to a march inland from
Grand Gulf. We could undertake, and safely, to hold the river and allow the
gun-boat fleet to go to Port Hudson and assist in the reduction of that place
so that all could unite against Vicksburg. I have written and explained to
Grant all these points, but the clamor is so great he fears to seem to give up
the attack on Vicksburg. My opinion is we should now feint on the river and
hasten to Grenada by any available road, and then move in great force south,
parallel with the river, leaving the gun-boats and a comparatively small force
here. Grant, however, trembles at the approaching thunders of popular criticism
and must risk anything, and it is my duty to back him though the contemplated
and partially executed move does not comport with my ideas. I know the
pictorials will giving flaming pictures of the successful running the batteries
of Vicksburg, but who thinks of their getting back? What will be thought if
some ten large cotton freighted boats come out of Yazoo and put all our
transports to the bottom and have us on the narrow margin of a great and turbid
stream? The fear of public clamor is more degrading to the mind than a just
measure of the dangers of battle with an open fair enemy in equal or even
unequal fight. Hugh and Charley1 were with me last night at the
picket station below Vicksburg and saw the cannonading, and will describe its
appearance better than I could. I can't help but overlook the present and look
ahead. I wish the enemy would commit this mistake with us, but no, they are too
cunning. General Thomas is here raising negro brigades. I would prefer to have
this a white man's war and provide for the negroes after the time has passed,
but we are in a revolution and I must not pretend to judge. With my opinions of
negroes and my experience, yea prejudice, I cannot trust them yet. Time may change
this but I cannot bring myself to trust negroes with arms in positions of
danger and trust. . . .

__________

1 Brothers of Mrs. Sherman.

SOURCES: M. A. DeWolfe Howe, Editor, Home Letters of
General Sherman, p. 249-53. A full copy of this letter can
be found in the William
T Sherman Family papers (SHR), University of Notre Dame Archives (UNDA),
Notre Dame, IN 46556, Folder CSHR 2/03.